[US Trending] 45-Day Countdown to National Lockdown | Zhuzhiliao vs. Huawei | Zhang Lan Clings to Yang Lanlan | Suspected White Paper Movement in Cinema | SpaceX Clears Out China | Is Tesla Planning to Run? | Apple Given Deadline to Cut Off Chinese Chips | The Collapse of the 'Bright Economic Outlook' Theory
The video first introduces the new exit and entry management regulations announced by China on July 31 and effective from September 15, followed by reports on events such as a suspected recurrence of the White Paper Movement in a Hefei cinema, lawyer Yang Lanlan's meeting with Zhang Lan, rights defense by employees in Jiamusi, and young people sharing beds in co-living arrangements. The program also focuses on the "Zhuzhilia vs. Huawei" conflict, an Australian bribery case, and the decoupling trends of SpaceX, Tesla, and Apple's supply chains from China.
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US Trending lets you hear the voices from outside the Great Firewall
Hello viewers, hello everyone
Welcome to today's US Trending
I am Qi Xiaotian. First, let's report
today's top news. Recently, the Chinese government has been making constant moves: restricting capital flight, imposing taxes on trusts, and strengthening corporate tax audits. Now, it has extended its reach to exit and entry control.
On July 31, Premier of the State Council Li Qiang signed State Council Decree No. 841, announcing the "Regulations of the State Council on Exit and Entry Management," which will take effect on September 15.
There are mainly three differences between these new regulations and the old ones: 1. A risk system for exiting the country is established for the first time. If you go to a high-risk country, the immigration bureau will directly remind you during document processing and border inspection, dissuade you if necessary, and if you refuse to listen, they will prevent you from leaving the country. This is the first time it has been explicitly stated in law.
2. The cost of deception has become heavier: the reasons for exit and entry must be true and legal; those who provide false materials or make false statements may be denied documents or denied exit and entry. Chinese citizens who obtain documents by fraud, engage in illegal exit and entry, are subject to administrative detention, engage in activities abroad that endanger national security, or violate export controls that may endanger industrial and technological security, may be prohibited from leaving the country for 6 months to 3 years; foreigners who commit fraud or related violations may be prohibited from entering the country for 1 to 5 years; foreigners listed on countermeasure lists, etc., will be directly restricted.
3. Strict management of intermediaries for the first time. Institutions and personnel engaged in exit and entry intermediary services must register (within 15 days for newly established institutions, and within 90 days for existing ones). Overseas institutions are not allowed to operate directly within the country, and false advertising, assisting in fraud, and leaking information are prohibited. If they violate the regulations, they will be fined, suspended, or have their licenses revoked. If public officials violate regulations to handle foreign documents, intermediaries must report them.
Do not underestimate the weight of this news. This is not an ordinary policy tightening, but a systemic signal. China is closing its doors: bodies, capital, and information—it will not let any of them go.
For this reason, Yao Yao Jiang
will add an extra episode today to interpret
these new regulations in detail for everyone
Welcome to watch on time at 11 PM Eastern Time tonight
Next, we enter the "Mobile Phone Watching China" segment. After the White Paper Movement occurred in China at the end of 2022, a blank sheet of paper was enough to make the Chinese authorities feel like they were facing a formidable enemy. And recently, in a Chinese cinema, the scene of the White Paper Movement unexpectedly reappeared.
On July 28, at the premiere of Spider-Man: Brand New Day at the Hefei Zhongying International Cinema, fans held up movie posters high with both hands. From another angle, however, it looked as though they were holding up blank sheets of white paper. Netizens in the comment section began dropping hints, asking whether this was a "reenactment of an event." Shortly after, the comment section of the video was wiped clean, and eventually, the video was taken down entirely. Netizens joked: "These days, not only can you not draw whatever you want on the front of a poster, but even leaving the back unprinted is now considered a potential safety hazard."
We have not heard news of "Heavenly Dragon Person" Yang Lanlan for a long time. Since the Sydney car accident in July 2025, this case has been to court 8 times, but Yang Lanlan herself has only attended once, with her lawyers appearing on her behalf the rest of the time. She has entered a plea of not guilty to all charges.
The case is currently scheduled for a pre-trial mention on October 2, 2026, at which point Yang Lanlan must appear in court in person; the formal hearing is expected to take place from late November to early December and last for 5 days.
In February 2026, Yang Lanlan moved out of her penthouse in Sydney's eastern suburbs and into a top-tier luxury mansion near Sydney Harbour, after which she once again "went into hiding." However, her lawyer, John Korn, unexpectedly became the focus of public attention yesterday.
Virally circulated videos show John Korn having lunch on the streets of Sydney with Zhang Lan, the founder of South Beauty. Netizens recognized that the person sitting between the two acting as a translator was Tang Lin, a Sydney-based Chinese lawyer who graduated from Beihang University. For a time, netizens began to speculate: Why would Zhang Lan sit together with Yang Lanlan's lawyer?
Zhang Lan's most prominent legal disputes currently stem from the controversy sparked after she sold South Beauty to CVC Capital in 2013. In 2019, an arbitration body ordered her to pay approximately $142 million. Since then, because she concealed assets, she was found in contempt of court by a Hong Kong court and sentenced to one year in imprisonment, though the sentence has yet to be carried out.
in March 2026, a U.S. court also seized valuable paintings worth $29.1 million belonging to her to pay off debts. In addition to this, Zhang Lan is involved in some smaller civil lawsuits in mainland China.
Currently, there is no public evidence showing that John Korn has officially become Zhang Lan's legal counsel, nor is it confirmed whether Zhang Lan sought his help regarding some new case. Some people online speculate that Zhang Lan may currently be in Australia and needs local lawyers to provide consultation regarding entry and residency, asset arrangement, or potential cross-border law enforcement risks. However, these claims are currently mere speculation.
Whether this lunch between Zhang Lan and Yang Lanlan's lawyer was merely ordinary socializing or involved some legal arrangement still remains without an answer.
On July 30, according to Chinese state media reports, President Xi finally acknowledged that China's economy can no longer maintain the narrative of the "Song of Brightness." The report stated: On July 24, the CCP Central Committee held a symposium with non-Party personages in Zhongnanhai regarding the current economic situation and economic work for the second half of the year. Xi Jinping presided over the symposium and acknowledged that the Chinese economy is currently facing some difficult challenges.
Xi Jinping demanded: Everyone must strengthen confidence, overcome difficulties, promote high-quality development, ensure steady and sustained progress, continuously strengthen ideological and political guidance for the broad membership and the masses they connect with, and constantly enhance political identity, ideological identity, theoretical identity, and emotional identity toward the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and socialism with Chinese characteristics.
One Twitter netizen joked: Saying it is as good as saying nothing. General Secretary Xi has even stepped in to personally command things, so just how badly must the economy have fallen? The answer is that even the basic government departments are running out of money.
On July 30, in front of the Jiamusi Post Office in Heilongjiang, multiple employees gathered to defend their rights. Employees reported that the unit failed to pay their housing provident fund and that there were problems of exploitation and harassment. During the rights-defense process, someone collapsed to the ground and was carried away by ambulance personnel.
Some young Chinese people have already begun taking extreme measures to save money in this terrible economic environment. On July 29, Reuters reported that under the pressure of unstable employment, stagnant wages, and the cost of living, some young Chinese laborers have begun sharing the same bedroom with strangers, and even sharing a single bed.
A 25-year-old female sales employee in Wuhan has a monthly income of about 4,000 yuan; fearing unemployment, she invited a strange woman to share a bed with her to save 450 yuan a month.
Even Shanghai, the ceiling of Chinese cities, has seen desperate cries. Recently, an old woman on the streets of Shanghai held up a sign and shouted: "I want to eat, I want to see a doctor, I have no money to buy rice." The chill of economic downturn often invades the most vulnerable grassroots elderly first.
On July 27, a netizen in Anhui filmed a 75-year-old elderly person still relying on moving cement to make a living. According to the uploader, a truckload of cement has a total of 280 bags, and for every bag moved they only receive 40 cents in compensation, earning a total of only 112 yuan after moving everything. The netizen said: The old man is kind-hearted and cannot bear to watch the elderly suffer; from now on, no more moving allowed!
Over the past couple of days, the topic of “the bamboo cicada versus Huawei” has suddenly gone viral across the entire Chinese internet. Huawei has managed to anger netizens nationwide over an inconspicuous, traditional little toy.
It all started when a father posted a video on Douyin of his child playing with a traditional toy known as a “bamboo cicada,” with the caption, “the best toy under 10 million.” However, the video was quickly reported and taken down following a complaint by Huawei.
The reason provided by Huawei was that the video used implicit methods such as metaphor, wordplay, and audio modification to uglify and mock the relevant enterprise and entrepreneur, deliberately manufacturing negative public opinion and causing the public to misunderstand the enterprise and its brand image, thereby infringing upon the enterprise’s right to reputation.
Regarding exactly why this video “violated taboos,” opinions online vary: some say it appropriated the phrasing “the best XX under 10 million,” echoing a statement made by Huawei Executive Director Richard Yu at the Aito M9 launch event when he said “the best SUV under 10 million.” Others suggest that the buzzing sound made when the bamboo cicada is shaken sounds very much like Richard Yu’s speaking accent.
Huawei’s grounds for complaint triggered an overwhelming wave of mockery from netizens. Netizens remarked: a traditional little toy with a caption gets labeled as “uglifying the enterprise.” To be this “glass-hearted” while constantly shouting about being “far ahead” is absurd.
On July 29, the situation escalated further. Multiple netizens reported that a large amount of content related to bamboo cicadas on Douyin was experiencing abnormal handling. Many people posted screenshots of complaint notices and platform violation alerts, with their content having its reach restricted or even being directly blocked from view.
Other netizens stated that within the past week, Douyin accounts that posted the cicada's call or shared bamboo cicadas had their profile pictures turned gray.
Netizens remained unyielding. On July 30, after the original video was taken down, a girl’s father continued to publish a new video, stating, “I refuse to believe it’s really a lawless world.” He also had his daughter wear a green big-mouth fish head mask to continue filming and changed his account profile picture to the Chinese national flag in an attempt to break through censorship.
Some netizens used other methods to create their own “bamboo cicadas” to mock Richard Yu. Direct criticism of Huawei is not permitted domestically, so netizens fully vented their fatigue with Huawei’s bullying style through this bamboo cicada incident. A little toy costing just a few yuan successfully turned Huawei into the target of a nationwide boycott.
While exporting production capacity, the CCP also exports corruption. However, the CCP’s culture of bribery does not work in Western countries governed by the rule of law.
On July 9, a 39-year-old manager of a Chinese new energy enterprise, Zhu Guoxin, met with individuals related to the approval of clean energy products and hid 20,000 Australian dollars in cash inside a bag of tea leaves, presenting it as a “business souvenir” to a public official in an attempt to influence the product approval process and secure commercial interests.
However, the official who received the “tea leaf gift bag” did not accept it and immediately reported the matter to the relevant authorities. The Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission, the Australian Federal Police, and the Queensland Police subsequently launched a joint investigation.
On July 24, Zhu Guoxin was arrested at Sydney Airport as he prepared to board an international flight to leave the country, and was subsequently escorted back to Queensland. The court denied his bail request on the grounds of flight risk. The case is expected to resume on August 5.
Netizens commented: I completely believe that this “manager”
has done this sort of thing plenty of times domestically
without ever getting into trouble.
Back home, this trick works universally and everywhere,
who would have thought that going straight to Australia would get him arrested...
The wisdom of our ancestors is no longer working.
One can easily imagine how widespread corruption and bribery are domestically. Below, we enter the segment of foreign media looking at China.
As strategic competition between China and the United States intensifies, an increasing number of American enterprises are prioritizing “supply chain security” over “cost efficiency.” Even Elon Musk, who navigates between the two countries and boasts a super factory in China, has quietly erected a nearly “China-zero” supply chain high wall at SpaceX.
Nikkei Asia published a related report. The report states that SpaceX, the American rocket and satellite manufacturer, is taking a series of strict measures to prevent China from having any impact on the company’s operations and supply chain, in order to protect critical technologies involving U.S. national security.
SpaceX has already dispatched teams to conduct rigorous audits of existing and potential suppliers. They not only inspect the origin of products but also require partners to ensure that no Chinese nationals, managers, or senior executives are assigned to projects related to manufacturing SpaceX products. If such personnel are found to be involved, suppliers must make adjustments or risk losing their orders.
The report also points out that SpaceX completely avoids procuring critical components from Chinese enterprises or factories located within China, even if the factory belongs to an enterprise from another country. Multiple suppliers revealed that products supplied to SpaceX must not use any parts produced by Chinese companies, and the engineers stationed at factories to provide technical support must also be of non-Chinese nationality; otherwise, the products will fail to pass certification.
In addition to personnel and parts, SpaceX also inspects equipment within its factories. Sources indicate that audit teams check infrastructure such as surveillance systems and network equipment. If equipment from Chinese brands, such as Hikvision or TP-Link, is discovered, it must be replaced, even if these factories are located outside of China.
Suppliers state that because SpaceX also undertakes important U.S. aerospace projects for organizations like NASA, these requirements are viewed as national security measures. SpaceX is also actively building a so-called "non-China, non-Taiwan" supply chain, hoping that even if the situation in the Taiwan Strait changes in the future, the company's production will not be affected.
SpaceX's approach is stricter than the "dual supply chain" strategy implemented by companies like HP and Dell. The latter still retain Chinese supply chains to satisfy the Chinese market, whereas SpaceX almost completely excludes Chinese factors.
Additionally, The Wall Street Journal reported on July 30 that Tesla is evaluating the separation of its Chinese operations (including the Shanghai Gigafactory), with plans covering spin-offs, sales, or closures to clear obstacles for a potential merger with SpaceX.
The report cited people familiar with the matter as saying that some executives had already received instructions to prepare. However, Musk subsequently responded on the X platform, saying: "This has never been discussed, absurd fake news." Tesla China also explicitly stated that the relevant news was "false information."
Dear viewers,
Who do you trust more, The Wall Street Journal or Musk?
Please leave a comment in the comments section. Similar to Musk, Apple has been trying to play both sides between the U.S. and China for years, making money in China while doing business in the U.S. But now, Washington's attitude is becoming increasingly clear: you can make money, but don't tie your supply chain to China.
Just as Apple wanted to find Chinese chips to solve an emergency, the U.S. Senate quickly stepped on the brakes. Bloomberg reported on this.
The report stated that a bipartisan group of U.S. senators recently wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook, urging Apple to abandon the procurement of memory chips from China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC), arguing that even if these chips are only used for products sold in the Chinese market, they should not be adopted.
The senators pointed out that both CXMT and YMTC have been included on the U.S. Department of Defense's list of companies with ties to the Chinese military. If Apple continues to procure products from these companies, it will create a critical supply dependence on Chinese companies with military backgrounds.
Apple has recently been in talks with CXMT and YMTC, hoping to alleviate the global memory chip shortage. Due to the surge in demand for AI chips from companies like Nvidia, global memory chip prices have continued to rise. Apple raised the prices of several products in June this year, attributing the cause to the tight supply of memory chips.
However, the U.S. Congress believes that even if Chinese chips are cheaper, they cannot be used to increase national security risks. The senators also demanded that Apple explain whether it had provided any technical data, blueprints, or intellectual property to CXMT in order to complete chip certification.
Apple has sought support from high-level officials in the Trump administration, including Treasury Secretary Bessent, hoping to obtain approval to procure Chinese chips. But vigilance within the U.S. government regarding China's advanced semiconductors continues to rise.
As Trump plans to hold a summit with Xi Jinping in September, chip export controls and the issue of rare earths will also become important topics for both sides.
Senators also emphasized that the U.S. is investing heavily to support the domestic memory industry. If Apple adopts a large number of Chinese memory chips, it may not only weaken U.S. domestic manufacturing but also send the wrong signal to the entire market, leading more companies to turn to Chinese supply chains.
the U.S. Senate has demanded that Apple commit by August 21 at the latest not to include chips from CXMT or YMTC in any products, and to further explain the specific details of its cooperation with the two Chinese companies.
From restricting exports to restricting procurement, and then to demanding that companies actively decouple, Chinese chips are facing not just market competition, but increasingly strict national security reviews.
Next, let's look at a few absurd videos.
A recent piece of propaganda from the CCP accidentally became evidence of China admitting to committing war crimes. The well-known Chinese internal propaganda account "Guangyin Qiepian" released a video titled "11-year-old Chinese genius girl recruited into the military due to mental abacus skills." However, the internal propaganda did not realize that recruiting minors under the age of 15 into the military is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Netizens mocked: The more such Great Leap Forward news there is, the better it is for the world.
Sanitation workers are one of the most exploited groups at the bottom of Chinese society. The following netizen perfectly exposed the CCP's false propaganda about sanitation workers with a single shot. A netizen commented: The CCP's propaganda says: This is called gagging your mouth while speaking for you.
At the end of the program, we enter the netizen interaction segment. Stan TheMan commented that the opening video of the last episode said: The recitation at the beginning was benchmarking North Korea. The reality is: everything is benchmarking North Korea, learning from North Korea.
Ziran Yangpai said: The reason Ceaușescu fell was not because the military developed a conscience, but because those lackeys were not getting paid either. If those lackeys could get their wages, they wouldn't care whether you civilians were in deep water or not.
Robin Nu said: When I was in school, the history teacher said that the Mongols in the Yuan Dynasty were afraid of the Han people rebelling, so there was only one kitchen knife for every ten households. The current CCP party-state is even worse than the Mongol Yuan era.